Tesla close to achieving profitability: Elon Musk

San Francisco, Oct 1 (IANS) Amid a slew of controversies surrounding Tesla CEO Elon Musk, there comes some good news for the electric-car company’s investors and staff as the tech billionaire has now said that the company is close to achieving profitability.

In emails to Tesla staff, Musk said that if the staff ccould pull through the pressure on Sunday, the company could be close to achieving an “epic victory” on production goals, CNBC reported.

The message from the Tesla boss could bring some cheer to the workers as the last few weeks had been quite tumultuous for Musk who had on Saturday agreed to step down as chairman of the company for three years and pay a $20 million fine in a deal with the US stock market regulatory authority, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to resolve securities fraud charges.

The SEC announced the deal on Saturday — two days after it sued Musk in federal court for misleading investors over his post on Twitter last month that he was considering taking Tesla into private ownership at $420 a share.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Musk’s misleading tweets caused Tesla’s stock price to jump by over six percent on August 7, and led to significant market disruption.

However, in two emails — one dated September 28 and the other September 30 — Musk exhorted staffers to “ignore the distractions” and that the company was close to “proving naysayers wrong”, the CNBC report said.

In order to “achieve a victory beyond all expectations, Tesla must go “all out” on production on Sunday which marks the end of the quarter, Musk said.